Google Services That Will Shut Down in 2012

If you've ever used Picnik.com, a quick online solution for picture editing in the absence of photo editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop then you might understand how convenient and practical it is to have such online application.

Google, however, will shut this service down on April 19, 2012, in addition to other less known products such as: - Google Message Continuity; an E-mail backup product for businesses - Needlebase; a data management platform, (June 1) - Social Graph API; info. about public connections for developers, (April 20) - Urchin--online web analytics, (March 31).

The criteria Google is using to make such decisions lies in "taking a hard look at products that replicate other features," as Google's blog reads, and seeing if they "haven't achieved the promise we had hoped for or can't be properly integrated into the overall Google experience."

As for Picnik, acquired by Google in 2010, Google will have the Picnik team "continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products." Google stated that users who previously subscribed for the premium service, the company will send a full refund in the coming weeks.

These changes may have caused a little bit more than frowns among numerous active users to which Dave Girouard, VP of Product Management at Google stated, "Changing products that people love is hard too. But we're excited to focus on creating a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google -an experience that will change the lives of millions of people."